Elder Laine Carter in the California Ventura Mission

The baptism on 9/22 was way good! A lot of missionaries came to it and President and Sister Nakken. She overcame a lot of adversity to get baptized, including the death of her father on Monday 9/17. Her brother was the one who baptized her. Way cool!! Exchange pic with the APs Feeling right at home in the cowboy hat!

It's so heartwarming  to receive texts, pictures, and phone calls from the members of Westlake Village ward where Elder Carter is serving. Thank you for taking such good care of  Elder Carter and Elder Tesch! We love you all!! We received this picture from Joel Bowler last week. Joel taught school with Laine's Aunt Dana Wilde at Morgan Middle School. Joel's sister and her family fed Elder Carter and Elder Tesch last week.  Like Dana said "It's a small world when you're a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!" We received these pics last night from some members who had the Elders over for a BBQ. We also received a call from the ward Elder's Quorum President letting us know that Elder Carter is doing well and that he is happy. So thoughtful!! Thank you!!

So we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders on Friday and it was great. I went with Elder Hutchinson and was fun. Learned lots.  We have an exchange with the APs this week so that will be interesting. Everyone says they have never heard of APs exchanging with missionaries very often so we will see what happens.  a Me and one of our Zone Leaders We had dinner with Brady Poppinga and his family for the second time since arriving in CA. (For those of you who don’t know, Brady Poppinga is a former American football linebacker in the National Football League for the Green Bay Packers, St. Louis Rams and the Dallas Cowboys. With the Packers, he won Super Bowl XLV over the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played college football at Brigham Young University .) And, we saw Kylie and Kendall Jenner last night so that was kinda crazy. Me and a dead squirrel Me and our Chevy Malibu

Second week went fast and was good. I keep a list of stories I want to remember and we got one every night this last week so that was awesome. My first Big Gulp The area we are assigned to is Westlake Village. It's about 20 minutes from the beach.  The beach is off limits unless we get special permission from Pres Nakken. We have done quite a bit of service so far. Mostly helping move stuff like boxes and helped a couple people move out. Then we got to help cut down and move a tree. It was so good haha I got to run the chainsaw and made me feel like I was back home down by the river .      I'm finally starting to get the hang of it haha.  I feel like I'm finally starting to get the hang of the mission. I miss cutting hay and hauling it and fixing machines. Weird, but I do miss that stuff. The tree we helped cut down

    "Elder Tesch is from West Point, Utah. He has been serving his mission for eight months.  We get along pretty well so far."     "We are serving in a place called Westlake.  Typical day consists of waking up, working out, eating breakfast, getting ready, then studying. Then we go knock doors for a bit the  lunch. Then knock more doors then dinner. Members feed us dinner almost every night so that's nice. There is one lady who is getting baptized on the 22 of September so that's awesome. Me and Elder Tesch white-washed the area ( both new to it) so we are trying to figure out the area and meet all the members. We are getting it though." A member gave me this suit! I like it and I wore it to church. "Our apartment is not to shabby. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms so one bedroom we sleep in and the other is our study room. We each have our own bathroom also. Yes the first thing I did when I got here was clean up haha it was pretty dirt...